80 to 3. WOOHOO!!

Ok, to clarify what I’m talking about here:

Friends, I am 80 bucks away from $3000 earned on Elance.  Yayyyyyyyyyyy!  Hard work, perseverance and being true to myself – are paying off in the nice form of tangible greenbacks.  Clams, smackers, dough, bread, moolah – pick one, any one.  Because the bottom line is that it's coming in and it SURE is a good feeling to have a quantifiable way to measure this freelance success. 

(image courtesy of liz-green.com)

This hasn’t been without sheer determination and a TOTAL round-the-clock devotion to my clients and their respective projects. 

Sorry – just HAD to get this mini-rave out there.

By the way, if you are reading this and decide you want to join up – please do it through this link  That way, I get to enjoy a small reward for latching you onto Elance. 

~F

My 10% Policy

Striving to beat deadlines.

As I triumphantly hit the ‘send’ button, shooting off that assignment with the latest travel article I owe to the international travel agent I’m writing for these days, I had a smug smile on my face thinking of all the headache I’d just saved myself for the upcoming weekend.  Entering the word ‘DONE’ on my work plan spread sheet always gives me a liberating feeling and one that motivates me to continue operating in this way.  As a rule, since I’ve been freelancing on Elance, I tend to assign a deadline for myself that is 10% sooner than the actual deadline – hence the 10% Policy.  This has worked wonders for me so far and there’s no sign of my changing this fantastic formula thus far.  Here are a few reasons why I find it’s working so well:

Happy Clients

If you’ve read my website (yes, it’s simple I know but I have actually gained some business through this little old site, so I’m happy with it for now) then you will know that my mantra is “A Happy Client is the Best Client.  Plain and Simple.”  Well, folks – it truly is as simple as that.  Turning in work early, without a doubt, has resulted in happy clients, time and again.  And I, for one, am not ready to get off THAT boat anytime soon. 

Regular Work

Happy clients usually mean clients that want more.  So, in my quest to set up a regular and consistent stream of work (more on that in another post), when I get a repeat client it’s MY turn to be the happy one.  The thing is, (going on a slight tangent here) when you know you have work coming and in certain batches that you come to know of and expect, it makes it easier to live life and earn well at the same time.  For me, this translates into being able to plan well and actually BE a (reasonably) successful mother of three, wife of one (does polyandry even exist anymore?  I think not) and friend/colleague of countless more.  So yeah, regular work is good and if turning in work before the deadline makes it more likely to happen, then more power to you.

Leeway

Let’s face it – life has its ups and downs and quite unlike the real workplace where your boss can pretty much see that you’re not doing so hot, an online work place offers the slight challenge of needing to prove yourself remotely.  (Imagine the myriad of excuses most online employers must have to face when it comes to why deadlines haven’t been met or shoddy work was submitted.)  So when I suffer my newest migraine the only conversation I want to have is with my pillow and two fat Excedrins.  Knowing that the product descriptions I promised the newest beauty products entrepreneur in North American are done, is terrific!  AND if, for some reason, IDIDN’T get the chance to complete an assignment, the leeway I get from having tacked on an extra 10% of play time (in my mind, anyway) is paramount.

Flexibility

The more projects that pile up, the more flexibility I need.  Not only do I appreciate the ability to switch around what I’m working on, on any given day, but I also highly value the capability to offer that same flexibility to my clients.  In the short time thus far that I’ve been using Elance as a freelance platform, I’ve already been faced with several requests to do something on an urgent basis.  It was my planning and hindsight and this awesome 10% policy that paved the way for me to say “YES! I can take care of it for you in the next 24 hours!” or “Ok, we can go to the park to play today again.”

Now, THAT’s a GREAT feeling folks J

To publish or not to publish your earnings – THAT is the question

Well, now that I’ve been using Elance for just about three months now, I finally unveiled my earnings (Elance allows you to keep your earnings private for the world to keep guessing – even though you can finagle your way in and see the figures of another provider).  I knew my clients and potential clients were able to see the cash I’d already pocketed to date but I wasn’t ready to share with other service providers like me on the site.  Not until now.

Let’s go over the whys or why nots.

Zeros Are Not Attractive.  They Just Aren’t. 

For one thing, as a new member the last thing you want to do is attract attention to that blaring ‘EGG’ (another way of saying ZERO).  I even had one client answer me point blank when asked why he didn’t select me even though I was an expert on that subject.  His answer?  “You don’t have any projects on your belt”.  Granted, having no projects is one thing but even showing really low numbers is not a good indication of high quality.  The last thing *I* wanted to do was to appear to be a sell-out.  Even though I employed one questionable strategy (you can read more about that here) of doing a LOT of work for very little money as an ice-breaker, I didn’t want to expose that right way.  I got lucky and since that first insanely low bid many projects have been pouring in.

Your Freelance Colleagues Bidding on the Same Projects Are Your Competitors.  Simple As That.

Any way you cut it, a freelancer is looking for work.  Usually.  And if they are actively seeking out projects, including bidding on the same ones you are bidding on – well, genius – they are vying for the same job!  I’m not saying they are not sincere or awesome people or that they deserve to be ostracized.  No, nothing like that.  But at least until you are an established E-Lancer, I don’t see the value is devaluing yourself (some may disagree here) by exposing your amateur earnings.  Again, they can work their way into each project and figure out what they are up against – if that – but most people don’t have time to do that.  They’d rather be bidding on quality projects.  ;)

Earnings Per Client and Other Weird Metrics

Elance is funny like that.  They have this weird and nonsensical system of lumping in all your earnings into one pool and then pulling an average based on the number of corresponding clients you’ve had.  At first, I wasn’t bothered by it.  Not until the one client I had who paid me $30 for a short article to test the waters.  Yeah, he loved my work * I knew he would ;) * but that one $30 project threw everything else off.  Suddenly my ‘Earnings Per Client’ stat plummeted.  The same thing makes no sense the other way around either.  I have a friend in Texas (yes, that’s where Bush is from ~sigh) who did one really high-paying job, creating the false impression to buyers/clients that her average client was spending more than several thousand dollars on her work.  NOT true and a stupid metric of measurement at that.  SO, to keep this under wraps a bit, for a time I had a veil on my earnings.  There are other weird stats on Elance but they at least provide a snapshot of what you’ve put in to your online freelance business.  The ‘Level’ a person is at is an instant ‘yes’ or ‘no’ for some clients – so one way to combat being judged by your earnings is to work on that metric.  Once again, when you reach a respectable ‘Level’ feel free to bare your earnings, in my book, because they’re not as important anymore.

Money in the Bank Means You Did Something Right

Having said all that I said above, I recently made my earnings public.  Never mind the fools that don’t realize what they’re missing if they don’t hire me because I don’t have an $8000-per-client average.  I can no longer be bothered by what others on Elance are thinking either; I’ve pretty much established that my work is quality.  Clients know what I’m good for, they know I’m committed and that they can rely on me.  At THIS blissful stage, I find that they are more focused on the client feedback (more on that in another post)and job history rather than the numbers next to that little dollar sign on my profile.

~

The moral, folks?  There is none.  Just that you need to do what makes you feel comfortable.  MY two cents is that it’s a good idea to wait a while.  Establish yourself.  Expose that number once it’s no longer one of the first things people look at on your profile. 

And, as always, I wish you the best of everything!

F